10th cousin to Sarah Palin?
Oh say it ain't so FrogTown..
MISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSED YOU...:)
rated with hugs

I voted for Obama for his strength of character and his intellect. He's related to Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney and Dubya-I wouldn't want to include them on my family tree! R

People hate the descendants of American slaves like no other people in history.

Try this: fake a Jamaican or British accent and see how people change their attitudes. It's like turning on light bulbs every time.

President Obama, however, should never be faulted for his ancestry. I am proud of him, even though he has more African DNA than I do, but gets more perks because mom was White. I never will get what that is all about.

He knew how Black he is when he got that first death threat.*




*Apologies to Chris Rock, who used that line when Tiger Woods tried to bury his African ancestry completely. And look how Tiger Woods turned out.

I am adding that a good part of my decision to vote for Pres Obama is that he was the alternative who stood a chance of winning. Hillary was a "born to lose" alternative, since it takes a majority of voters, not just Democratic party voters, to win.

No one should be faulted for their ancestry. We've all got some for pride and some to hide. What is important is only which we will be to our own descendants. And most likely, we all have some slaves back there somewhere. It's just the slavery of the US that jar our bitterest memories. Slavery and human kind go back far, far beyond American history.

Another good post, Diva. R.

PS> All white Americans have African ancestry too, if modern genetics and the dna marker trails are any indicator.

We are ALL Africans on this fine planet ... every single human alive came from Africa. There is one big, big difference, though. Post-migratory Africans, including African-Americans before their literal rape, have no Neandertal genes; the rest of us are 1-5%.

Is that true? But most African-Americans are African, Indian and/or Caucasian genetic mixes, so we share everything.

xeno,

Check out the The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD). I recommend a visit to anyone interested in truth and fact:

http://www.moadsf.org/

cheers!

I never thought about this and Obama. I still think he is a great president. He did more in 2 years than the previous 4 presidents did in all their terms. The Republicans just set out to discredit and destroy everthing and they were really good at it. I think the Whitehouse was too busy to notice that it was working too well. We need Obama to succeed. We won't survive another Republican president.

@Kathy: But isn't the "mainstream, corporate dominated media" complicit in hiding all of his accomplishments?

By now, I should be able to find pages of the compilations, but there seems to be a blackout! Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are commenting about it, but Fox and CNN are mum about their blackout.

This post isn't about the President's performance in his job, which I agree has been quite good given what he inherited. It's also not about race, although it may seem to be. It's about a culture and a legacy that's overlooked, demeaned, and disregarded even by man who've inherited the legacy of African-American slave culture which I call AfrAm. I, for one, proud of my slave ancestors and feel very protective and perhaps, at time, defensive if that legacy. I've just gotten weary of black people who should know better lumping all black people into a legacy that not all blacks have. To me that's like saying a Europeans are Celtic are all Asians are Samurai. While all of us are one people as Americans united by our love for freedom I will always advocate for the recognition and respect of individual cultures. To allow people to continue to say that a man whose African heritage did not include the Middle Passage, the auction block, involuntary servitude, Jim Crow, and all of the rest of the legacy of AMERICAN slavery is a descendant of THAT institution is disrespectful to that legacy and that culture, in my opinion.

Nice to see you here again my friend from the other side of Lake Erie.

Looks like Oahu is right about the Neanderthal connection. I had thought that dna studies had shown no connection, but I found an interesting article online that says that non-Africans have 1-4% Neanderthal genes.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/3440/neandertals-and-humans-interbred-geneticists?page=0%2C1

Guess it got a little cold in those European Winters. :)

Thanks for the further explanation, Diva. While it really didn't matter that much to me personally as a generally recognised American white man, it's good to understand the distinction you are making.

Good to see you Diva!

I think we should be more concerned about what we will leave as our legacy than we are about our ancestry.
Rated.

Have no idea who my ancestors are or who Obama's ancestors are. I did, however, vote for him for the sake of my descendants.

Good post though (again!). *smile*

Thanks for the comments. They are much appreciated and so is every single person who took the time to comment. I especially appreciate the info about the Neanderthals. I've seen documentaries on this species and think there's much more to them than we know. Thanks for listening to my point if view and sharing yours.

Yeah, just read the article about Obama being related to Palin and others. That's awesome.

Just think about THAT family reunion!!:D

Tink, if they have one I think we should go! I could make like a toad and give them all warts and you could piss on everyone's shoes! On second thought, let's do THAT at the Jefferson family reunion since those bluebloods won't accept us "black sheep" as part of the family.

What a waste of time to be worrying about Obama's lineage and skin tone. That's all in the past and immutable.

What's important is what he's doing to this noble country through his maladroit leadership. He will shortly learn from the majority of Americans that his brand of retrogressive, tried and failed collectivism doesn't appeal.

It will be interesting to see how he continues for a couple of more years under the changed circumstances. I doubt that he's sufficiently mature to adapt. I think we're in for two years of petulant sulking with a fair amount of Chicago-style politicing thrown in for good measure.

That's your opinion. I have mine and that's what I'm talking about. This isn't about politics, just inaccurate information.

Btw, Gordon, President Obama is also a distant cousin of Rush Limbaugh. Given that and his kinship to the likes of Bush and Cheney, I hope you're right that lineage doesn't matter. All we need is more of Bush-Cheny with a dash of Limp Bow thrown in for good measure!

Have you read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell? I think you'd really like it and its a quick read. The last chapter seems to go along with your blog. Gladwell goes into his family tree and I believe he mentioned Colin Powell, from what I remember.
Interesting blog.
Best Wishes,
Blittie

I've heard the book is phenomenal, Blittie! I'll have to put it on my zlXmas wish list.